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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Title IX

The
following post appears courtesy of the Civil Rights Division

This June, the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division commemorates the 40th anniversary of Title IX of the
Educational Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of
sex in education programs and activities offered by recipients of federal
financial assistance.Yesterday, the
Division released a report highlighting its enforcement of Title IX and its
other work to combat sex discrimination in education over the past forty years.

The Civil Rights Division helps enforce
Title IX by:

•Coordinating enforcement of Title IX across
federal agencies;

•Enforcing Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and other
characteristics in public schools, colleges and universities; and

•Engaging in a variety of outreach and policy
efforts to stop sex-based discrimination.

The division uses a full range of tools
to accomplish these goals, including conducting investigations, filing amicus
briefs, participating in lawsuits and negotiating consent decrees and other
settlements.This milestone anniversary
provides an opportunity for the division to reflect on its enforcement of
federal civil rights laws that prohibit sex-based discrimination and to
reaffirm its continuing commitment to addressing this discrimination in a wide
range of educational contexts.

Yesterday, Thomas E. Perez, Assistant
Attorney General joined Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett as well
as the Secretary of the Department of Education Arne Duncan in a panel discussion
hosted by the White House Council on Women and Girls to celebrate the
anniversary of Title IX.Other speakers
at the White House event included.At
the event, Assistant Attorney General Perez said:

It’s about saying to people … the
pathways of opportunity for everyone are going to be open, and it’s up to you
to seize those opportunities.

Despite the gains achieved in the last
40 years, inequalities in education persist.The division remains committed to pursuing the goal of equality in education
through vigorous enforcement of Title IX and other federal civil rights laws
that prohibit discrimination.

Preventing and addressing sexual
harassment and sexual violence is one critical area in which the department
helps to ensure safe school environments where all students can learn.The division has successfully intervened in
lawsuits challenging the sexual harassment of students by other students and
school personnel and the failure of schools to promptly and adequately
respond.These cases have resulted in
consent decrees that require school districts to develop and fully implement
more effective sexual harassment policies and provide comprehensive training
for students and staff.

Efforts to address these issues at the
postsecondary level are also imperative.The division recently announced a Title IX compliance review and Title
IV investigation of the University of Montana’s handling of allegations of
sexual harassment and assault.The
division is working collaboratively with OCR to conduct its review and ensure
that the University of Montana is responding swiftly and effectively to
allegations of sexual assault and harassment of its students.The division also simultaneously launched an
investigation of the university’s campus police, the local police and the local
prosecutor’s office to determine whether gender discrimination affected the
prevention, investigation or prosecution of sexual assaults by those
offices.By using its broad statutory
authority within the division and collaborating across federal agencies, the
division is using every available tool to combat discrimination and violence
against women.

Cases involving peer-on-peer harassment
based on gender stereotypes also constitute an active area of the division’s
Title IX and Title IV enforcement efforts.The division has filed amicus briefs and negotiated settlements in
several cases involving the physical, verbal and sexual harassment of students
who do not conform to gender stereotypes – i.e., stereotypical notions about how
boys and girls are “supposed” to dress, act and talk.

Most recently, the division, in
conjunction with OCR, conducted an extensive investigation into sex-based
harassment in the Anoka-Hennepin, Minn., School District’s middle and high
schools after receiving a complaint alleging peer harassment based on sex,
including harassment based on gender stereotypes.The joint investigation found that students
in the district’s middle and high schools were subject to derogatory language,
threats and physical assaults because of their nonconformity to gender
stereotypes.The division and six
student plaintiffs achieved a consent decree in which the district agreed to
develop and implement a comprehensive plan for preventing and addressing
student-on-student sex-based harassment.Engaging in enforcement of Title IX and Title IV to prevent gender
discrimination, including in cases in which male students are the subject of
sex-based harassment, furthers the enormous impact these statutes have had and
can have in creating safe, discrimination-free educational environments.

Title IX also has played a
groundbreaking role in increasing opportunities for female athletes in schools
and post-secondary institutions.The
division has filed amicus briefs in a range of cases to ensure that female
athletes have facilities and competition schedules equivalent to those of their
male peers and that they have equal opportunities to participate in high school
and intercollegiate competition.For
example, the division intervened in a lawsuit to successfully challenge a South
Dakota policy requiring female high school athletes to play certain sports in
disadvantageous seasons, which, among other things, negatively impacted their
participation in interstate competition.Equal access to school athletics is an essential element of a
nondiscriminatory educational environment, and the division continues to make
significant contributions to ensuring that these opportunities are available
regardless of sex.